An early turning point in the 49ers’ NFC championship loss to the Eagles came on Philadelphia’s opening drive. Head coach Kyle Shanahan opted to not challenge a controversial fourth-down reception by Eagles wide receiver DeVonta Smith, gifting Philadelphia a first-and-goal at the 49ers’ 6.
Shanahan after the game offered an explanation for his decision not to challenge the play.
“Because the replay we saw didn’t definitively show that,” Shanahan said in his postgame press conference. “We saw one up on the scoreboard. I wasn’t going to throw one anyways just to hope to take the chance. But they showed one up on the scoreboard that didn’t have all those angles you guys saw. That looked like a catch and we didn’t want to waste a timeout. Which we definitely would have if we didn’t see that. I heard they got a couple other angles and you guys ended up seeing later that it was not a catch.”
The couple of early replays shown by Fox were inconclusive, but they showed an additional angle later that showed Smith did lose control of the ball. Had Shanahan challenged the play it very likely would’ve been ruled incomplete.
It’s hard to grasp the logic from Shanahan to not try and challenge the play, even as Smith and the Eagles raced to the line to get a play off as quickly as possible.
The risk is losing a timeout. The reward is a fourth-down stop that gets San Francisco’s defense off the field. It’s worth noting the 49ers went into the locker room at halftime with all three of their timeouts.
Perhaps they would have needed all of those timeouts in the event Brock Purdy was healthy enough to finish the game as a passer. What they could’ve used more though was a stop on the Eagles’ first series, and Shanahan’s indecision in that moment was an early 50-50 swing that went Philadelphia’s way and they never looked back.
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